Please Tell Me I'm
by Shadowflame611
Summary: The mind has a few interesting methods when it comes to coping with stress and tragedy. Sometimes, reliving an event almost seems like a punishment, whether it was slightly fictionalized by our minds or not. Gameradon one-shot. M for nasty images.


_This may or may not have been done. Regardless, I just decided to finish it up and post it as was, so its (once again) not very edited. _

_Strong possibility of character death (always with me, haha). You've been warned! Also, strong images. Violency-things. Gore. Yummy. :p_

_I don't own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or related characters._

Please Tell Me I'm-

Awareness came to him slowly, in small margins which started with the frozen, biting quality of the air against his skin and ended with the opening of his eyes.

Taking in a breath one takes after waking from a long deep sleep, he first moved his arm, dragging his hand palm-down till it lie parallel with his chest. Eyes fluttering shut for a few moments, he swallowed against the dry, cracked feeling in his throat before heaving himself up, peeling his cheek from the rough cement flooring.

Blinking against the sudden darkness in the room, he leaned heavily on his arm and groaned, nearly crumpling to the floor again. Once again allowing the still-heavy lids to slide shut over his gritty eyes, he didn't reopen them again until he could hear his breathing over the sharp ringing in his ears.

Staring wide-eyed at the lair around him, Don took a few seconds to try to think. Something felt _wrong_. Not only was it strange that he had absolutely no recollection of falling to the floor or even _being_ in the lair (he was at April's last he could remember), something felt out of place. There was a strange, itching feeling in his chest, a numb tingling at the tips of his digits. Taking a deep breath so that he could blast off in to a round of hacking, wheezing coughs, he wondered idly to himself if he had fallen asleep at April's and the others had picked him up.

He must have been sleep walking, must have been left on the couch. It was probably the middle of the night; the others were in their respective bedrooms. He could attribute the coughing to his cold, but what didn't make sense was the sudden loss of pressure in his sinuses, the fact that he could actually _breathe_ again through his nose.

The air still didn't smell the same, though. It had a weird, metallic quality to it. Bringing his hand to his face, he rubbed his knuckles against his nose and sniffed against the tingling feeling there too, bringing his hand down to behold the brownish, starting-to-crust blood there. A nosebleed.

What a strange bug. Either that, or he had fallen right on his face.

Feeling okay enough to stand, he flexed his knees and stood slowly as his joints popped in protest to the sudden weight shift. Afraid of another bought of crippling dizziness, he stretched his arm out and grasped at the rough, worn fabric of the old couch. It was then that he saw his lab.

Scattered around him were little pieces of black plastic he was quick to recognize as the keys of a keyboard. Light flickered from the open doorway in sporadic bursts, beckoning him forth to investigate.

Leaning heavily in the doorway, he surveyed the damage, cringing at the sight of his overturned desk. Papers were scattered everywhere, ripped, coating the floor so thoroughly that only oddly-shaped chunks of the tile were visible. One of his older monitors lay in the corner where it had obviously been thrown. Broken glass gleamed threateningly from across the way, illuminated in the light of one of Donatello's many experiments.

Anger came first, a sweltering in his chest which made his teeth clench and grind. Just as quickly the feeling snuffed to cold dread. His brothers wouldn't do this kind of damage to his workplace. Even Raphael, with his mindless fits of rage, wouldn't do this much damage. Even if they had no respect for his personal space and belongings (which they didn't), the importance of the items exhausted from this room were apparent throughout the lair, from the security system to the kitchen appliances.

Furthermore, there was no way Donnie could sleep through the making of such a mess. The thought had him shrinking back across the lair toward the deeper shadows. He reached for his bo, realizing with a pang that he wasn't wearing any of his gear. Letting a muted hiss escape through clenched teeth, he put his hand out behind him as he continued toward the back wall.

The ground turned sticky beneath his feet, and at first, he ignored it. Then his heel bumped something, and as he turned for a better view his foot came down on his brother's wrist.

Pulling back as though burned, worry now worming a hole in his chest, he bent to examine further. Two motionless bodies lay in a jumbled mass, their limbs bent at all possible angles and then some. Don felt the cool skin, the stiff flesh; he wrapped his hand around the wrist and felt for a pulse, and it was in denial that he shook the still form, watching the body parts move uselessly like a rag doll.

Breathing gone ragged, Don stepped forward toward the other form, his feet making a sickening _tik-tik_ as he peeled them from the dried gore, reaching for the other body, pushing his fingers to the neck where the skin had folded and kept the blood moist.

Vision clouding, he fell to his knees. Uttering a sound infantile in nature, he reached and took the face of the first form, running a thumb gently over his brother's cheek, his entire body beginning to shake with the dry sobs of shock and horror which wiggled their way out of him.

Unable to take it longer, he dropped on all fours, forgetting the stickiness beneath him as he gasped, letting out a hoarse cry of pain as he erupted to a fit of coughs.

After a while, the nagging memory of his remaining brother and father tugged him from his grief. Standing slowly, he turned his head in a searching manner, stomach panging painfully at the silence. Then he was moving… he was trying to run, but he couldn't.

Splinter's room was empty, untouched.

Upstairs. He didn't look down as he passed the bodies, but felt an itchy tingling at their presence as he passed. It was like they were watching him. He suppressed the wave of grief, brought to the front of his emotional plane the forebodingly dark worry in his chest.

He passed the four bedrooms. There was something about the bathroom which demanded his attention. Reaching for the door, he brushed the wood with his fingers, letting the oiled hinges slide easily inward.

The scent of blood hit him with force. He still walked forward, though. He told his feet to stop, but they kept going. And going…

Michelangelo lay sprawled on the floor, his blood covering the walls in the form of handprints and splatters. In one hand there was a bloodied pair of nunchucks. In the other…

_Oh, oh no…_ There was no other hand. Just an elbow, a discontinued limb. Falling again to his knees, Donatello reached for the pulse he had already knew to be absent, as though there would be any blood left within the shrunken green mass. Then, almost against his will, he reached for the reddened stump. Flesh squelched beneath his strong fingers, and standing to rush for the sink, he retched.

Up from his bowels came something solid, followed by a fountain of blood. Panting and spitting at the foulness in taste and smell, Donatello looked up in to the mirror.

He stared at himself, at the startling rust contrast ringing his lips, painting him from his chin down his neck and to his chest. He tasted the salty taste in his mouth, and knew he didn't have a nosebleed. Spitting, shivering at a sudden onslaught of knowledge, he closed his eyes against the will to glance down in to the sink basin. Even as he thought not to look, his head tipped, and the comforting blackness of his closed lids disappeared.

He looked down and saw Michelangelo's missing hand, which twitched hideously in the white bowl of the sink.

He recalled then what had happened at April's. He remembered telling her to run just as his skin erupted to somehow yield more flesh, how the sentence had ended in a croak as his vocal chords stretched and tore to something new, something _feral_. He remembered his last moments of panic and relived them in a different light, heart beating hard enough to break through his carapace. He hadn't understood what was happening to him, and now after the fact he still wasn't entirely sure. It didn't matter, though. Any curiosity he might have had at the discovery was ripped from him, washed away, diluted by his family's blood.

He turned, knowing before his eyes fell on Splinter that he would be standing there. Tears streaked the old rat's face as he shook his head, Leonardo's bloodied katana held firmly in his claws. Understanding flooded the turtle, and for the third time he fell to his knees.

He couldn't speak earlier, but he had to now. He had to tell him. Had to _say it_.

"_Do it!"_ He begged his father, watching at the rat crumpled a bit in to more wretched sobs. _"Please, just do it!"_

There was a type of beauty in the way that Splinter moved. With grace and speed he hoisted Leonardo's weapon to shoulder level for the strike, and Donatello obediently lifted his chin for the blow.

He fell like a sack of potatoes, the tingling returning, this time with warmth. With eyes that should no longer be functioning, Donatello watched as his father bent to stroke his cheek gently.

He wanted to move. He wanted to tell Splinter not to be so tender, that he was a monster, that he had murdered and _eaten_ his family. But he couldn't. His throat was sliced clean through; he could somehow see himself from above even as he watched his father from his fallen point of view.

_ How strange._

The thoughtful, numbed mood turned once again to horror as Splinter straightened, yielded the katana once again. Sitting next to his son, he positioned the tip just so…

_NO! No no no no no…_ Donatello couldn't move, couldn't speak. He was dead. He knew he was. Maybe this was some sort of punishment. Maybe that's why he could still see-

With a confident firmness Splinter shoved the point of the weapon in to the upper left of his chest. But he did not fall as Donatello had. He curled forward slowly, his blood spilled last, melting forward till he lay across his son-

He woke himself up with his scream. Sucking in a breath, he screwed his eyes shut at the sudden blindness of light, barely able to hear his brother's voice over the rapid _whoosh_ in his ears.

"Don, wake up! Hey, l-look at me… you okay?"

Turning in his moist and tangled sheets, Don peeked at Mikey, who was stripped of his gear save for his weapons. Behind him stood their older brothers.

"Nnmikey?"

"You're not… you're okay, right?"

In response, Donatello gripped his head and sobbed dryly in to his sheets. He felt his father's claws on the back of his skull, and fought for his voice.

"I dreamed… I dreamt…"

"Shh." The fingers were at the back of his neck now, stroking. Comforting. "It was but a dream."

"I killed you all… I ate Mikey's h-h…"

Unable to finish, Don simply settled to miserable panting.

"Well, you did try to bite it off once…" _Whack. _"Oww!"

"_Stupid._ To tell him that…" Raph must have dealt the blow.

Splinter's grip moved to the crook of Don's arm. "Come, Donatello. Leonardo, fresh sheets for the couch. Raphael, please assist me…" His father sat him up as the dirtied sheets were scooped away, quickly replaced with dry ones of mismatched patterns. It took Don a moment to notice that the blankets had come from Leo's own bed; three other makeshift pallets had been set up around the couch in the living room.

Someone put pressure on Don's chest, and he reluctantly laid back. Leo's face appeared above him, his large hand cupping his sick brother's cheek.

"I'm dangerous." He tried to screw up his face to convey the meaning of the statement to his brother, pleading for him to understand.

But Leo only shook his head, slowly. "No, _you _are not." He swallowed thickly, adam's apple bobbing. "Leatherhead's in the back just in case. We got you, Don. And we're not going to let go again. Just rest, okay?"

Not convinced, the purple-masked turtle turned his head away until Leo retreated backward. Jaw clenched, partially lulled by the sound of his family's breathing, he fought sleep for the rest of the night.

_I always kindof wondered how Don's first night back went._

_I mean, I remember him expressing a little annoyance at not being able to return back to his normal functioning self in the group (haven't seen the show in a while, but I remember Don sitting on the couch and Leo mentioning a fear of relapse). But that was a little after the fact… right?_

_Anyway, hope you enjoyed!_


End file.
